Saturday, January 30, 2016

There are always reasons not to do things and I know how a good many people in this community of patriots feel about protests and rallies, but there comes a time when numbers matter. The murder of LaVoy Finicum should not be allowed to go silently by. The Pacific Patriots Network has put out a peaceful call to action in Burns Oregon, a call to action that I will honor, because it calls for authorities who perpetrated murder and were involved in a conspiracy to commit murder to be held accountable.

We have moved past the point where we can vote our way out of our situation. We don't have very many options left. Ammon Bundy tried one way that many of us felt was ill-advised and so we stayed out of it. We offered our support, but not our participation. Sadly, that effort turned deadly, but not because of Ammon Bundy. Bundy had talked to the FBI and had been lulled into thinking that he could share his grievances with rational people without a confrontation. LaVoy Finicum died as a result, but that was not the cause of Finicum's death, no one is responsible for that death other than the OSP and the FBI who orchestrated it.

The Pacific Patriots Network is urging us to take part in a peaceful action to bring the light of day to the events of January 26th. Nothing else.

We have lost a lot of rights over the past several decades of inaction. Yes, we have hardened our defenses and trained and prepped for whatever might come, but the vast majority of us in this community of patriots, who know that their rights must be defended, have done little to defend them. That is not a criticism, they have done what was right for themselves and will defend their own rights. I have no doubt about that.

Those who read this blog know that I do not consider myself a leader and never have. I know what is right for me to do and I try to do it. I share my thoughts with others and sometimes they agree and sometimes they don't. So, I am not trying to tell anyone what to do or why they should do it, but let me tell you why I am going to honor the call to action.

There was a time when I felt free on my father's land. Anything I had a thought to do that did not hurt anyone else or destroy his property was done. Simple as that. If I wanted to go hunting, I checked my rifle, loaded it and went. I shot what I wanted to shoot. It was a time when if I wanted to say something, I said it. If that hurt someone's feelings, they had every right to take it up with me directly and I was prepared to suffer the consequences. I learned as much by losing as I did by winning. Often, I won, but that did not make me right, it only made me feel worse, because I knew I was wrong and the one who called me on it got hurt. When I lost, I had to weigh that against what I said next, but if I felt it was the right thing to say, I would say it again and again.

Now, wherever I go: to work; to my child's school; even on this blog, I am subject to censorship and the offending words continue to multiply.

In my childhood the police were not enemies and they were not feared, they were respected. Over the interim, the police changed. As they violated my rights, they lost my respect. As the community I grew up in decided it had more say in what I did, the more I recognized it as diseased. The more the government tried to "protect" me from myself, the more I recognized it as tyrannical. When it got too much to bear, back in 1987, I started speaking out.

I started by protesting, then I got involved in the legislature and worked with groups to change the laws. It took me a while to realize that lobbyists could write laws a lot faster than we could change them. I voted for candidates, I worked for candidates. I challenged every seat belt citation. I gave lectures to police on the Fourth Amendment when I encountered DUI road blocks. Back then, they felt a little sheepish when I confronted them with the citation of the Fourth Amendment and offered some "you'd feel different if one of your family were saved by this check point" rationalization. Now, they would probably shoot me over it.

That's what they did to LaVoy Finicum.

The FBI has grown so brazen that they released the video quickly, comforted in the fact that the major media outlets would convince us all that what we saw was justified, simply because they felt justified in doing it. Without a weapon ever being seen in LaVoy Finicum's hand, they murdered him and all of those liberals who jumped on social media to cheer them on are guilty of creating the atmosphere that makes such a thing possible.

I don't think taking part in any rally or protest will change anything. I am not going up there to change something. I am going, because LaVoy Finicum can no longer confront them with their abuses and I believe that the voice that has been silenced needs to be replaced with another who shouts louder. I am going, because they committed murder and I will not look away in silence and tap on a keyboard.

I will stay as long as I can and do what I can. That's not much, I know, but it is enough for me to show them that they can not get rid of the issue by killing the messenger.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

I am in mourning, to some degree for Robert "La Voy" Finicum, a man I did not know, but felt a great kinship toward, but more for the fact that the inevitable Civil War that has been simmering for decades now is impossible to prevent.

The patriot/liberty community and the militias that have grown up out of the injustices of the federal government in the past have now been given a new martyr for the cause and proved all of our past indictments to be true. It is now an academic reality that the first shot fired in the new resistance was taken on January 26th at another government ambush.

Another generation of Americans will come to hold federal agents in contempt and the illusion of peaceful resistance has been once again shattered with the crack of a rifle. Victoria Sharp echoed the disillusionment of that new generation when she exclaimed "...they just shot him dead."

That's it, that's what they do. They make statements with lead. They do to the American people what they are trained to do to our enemies and criminals wielding weapons, not unarmed men just trying to point out the illegal occupation of state lands.

And, no, I don't care who it was that actually pulled the trigger, either state police, or federal agent makes no difference, it was on federally occupied land in conjunction and coordination with a federal government controlled action.

What made the Civil War now almost impossible to avert is the fact that so many blood-thirsty liberals jumped onto whatever social media platform it could in order to cheer on their instruments of violence.

We are at a crossroads now. It is no longer possible for federal agents to claim some sort of ethical superiority and it is no longer possible for liberals to hide behind their touchy-feely façade. All has been exposed for the next generation of patriots who now get it. The stories they have heard since the 1990's are no longer just histories of a movement, they are now their stories, their histories and what they might have thought had taken place in a long ago time and place are now immediate and real.

I have been outraged by the actions of federal government agents for nearly thirty years, but now I have new allies among the younger generation who just witnessed the worst of federal government excess: the open murder of an unarmed man.

The occupation of the Malheur refuge was not an action I thought was a logical and clearly thought out movement, but I respected Ammon Bundy for his decision. I respect Ammon Bundy for his willingness to expose the illegality of federal occupation of Western lands and his dedication to the cause. I respected Finicum's clarity, reasonable arguments, dedication and intent.

All of that is moot, now, because it doesn't matter if I agreed with Ammon Bundy's tactics. It doesn't matter if I thought they should have stayed at the refuge, or done it differently.

What I know, is this: Ammon Bundy and his group decided to trust the feds and make the journey to a meeting in another county, crossing through occupied lands and the feds sprung their ambush, regardless of the fact that an innocent girl was in the vehicle. That did not matter to the feds one bit. It did not stop one shot from being fired into the vehicle. I think they sought a massacre and only God prevented it.

So, here we are, a divided nation with many more converts to the resistance and many more hardened positions on each side. All of the social revelations that must come will now come with a complete understanding of the younger generation as to how brutal and indeed criminal the feds are. They know what I knew a long time ago.

Yes, I am in mourning to a degree, because I know when the time comes, there is no reason not to respond to the call to arms.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

When family is in trouble, there is only one thing to do, reach out to others. It is a part of what makes this community of like-minded people special to me. We can only count on ourselves, because there are no support groups for folks like us. There are no concerts to help those in trouble without some liberal connection. So, here we are again. Please reach out and give Shaylyn a hand, she has been hammered recently and could use some support.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Facebook has decided to start censoring "hate speech." I cannot think of an issue that so well illustrates the value of the Constitution.

Now, to be honest, Facebook is a commercial enterprise and has every right to censor it's content. Just as its subscribers have every right to find some other social media outlet that has a better grasp of the necessity of the public discourse, which, by nature, must be free from restriction.

But, what Facebook has decided is that it wants to control the debate, allowing one side to freely express itself and restricting the other side. It has chosen to be a megaphone rather than a telephone. It wants to allow others to speak to us, but will not allow us to speak to them. To me, that is a really poor business model, but that is what they have chosen to do. It is a poor business model, because if they were intellectually honest, they would wind up disposing of nearly all of their accounts save for the Mother Teresas of the world.

This is exactly the sort of behavior exhibited by those who must not be trusted with leadership. They are incapable of responsible use of power. To them, if they can silence those with whom they disagree, they will. That is not the act of someone who understands America.

The Constitution protects free speech. Now, there was a reason that speech was protected, but those in control of Facebook have never read the Federalist Papers or even the Anti-Federalist Papers. They have never read Miracle in Philadelphia, or they would understand the arguments behind an amendment that protected free speech. Trust me, there were no political figures of the time that did not suffer greatly from pamphlets written by their political enemies, but even in the heat of those political battles, none suggested that the First Amendment be abolished, because they were educated men, not Facebook petty tyrants.

It seems like ever since Barack Obama made hating America popular, every little tyrant with the slightest amount of power has exercised it against freedom. Facebook is just the latest example, following the IRS targeting of conservative organizations, PayPal's suspension of accounts (usually those of a conservative nature, like mine) and etc.

This is a narrowing of the discourse, that's all. This is how genocides are started: identify, target, restrict, censor, imprison and slaughter. The first act of a tyrant is to vilify a particular race or political sect. Can you tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite? They can and they were willing to kill each other over what small differences there are.

All we are seeing from Facebook, is a willingness to identify, target, restrict and censor; when they get around to being complicit in the imprisonment and the genocide is yet to be determined, but it is obviously within their limited mentality to do so.

This blog, however, does not restrict comments, never has. Only when it has been besieged by robots does it ever, even for the shortest period, turn comments off. But then, I believe in the dialog; the value of discourse, especially with those with whom I greatly disagree. But, this is being lost in society. The liberals scream "diversity" and "tolerance" and show a penchant for neither. It is not allowing the speech of those you admire that shows character, it is allowing the speech of those you detest.

The United States is quickly turning into everything the Soviet Union represented as evil, albeit with more resources and wealth, but essentially, in all ways that matter, we have become the enemy we feared. As soon as the Cold War was over, we lost the peace. We willingly became the enemy, because we did not truly understand the value of the Constitution, the very real protections it offers a free people. But a free people are only free when they refuse to enslave themselves. Once enslaved, freedom is no longer an elective. That is the sad truth of our situation. We are slowly enslaving ourselves, most of us thinking that we can later vote to regain that freedom, but that is a freedom we will never have again. We barely have it now. Look at all the power coming to bear on Trump's campaign from the Republicans. The Democrats don't even have to worry about Trump, the Republicans will destroy him first.

That is because Trump is not in on the enslavement game, not yet anyway.

Everything since 9/11 has been directed at taking the final steps to encourage the American people to vote themselves into slavery. There is no way to vote oneself out of it, however. That sort of reversal requires a war and only then if the forces of liberty win.

Ask yourself how long it will be before you are unable to use the word "bacon" without being thrown off of Facebook; before it costs you your job, because only "hatespeechers" are banned from Facebook and no one wants to hire a "hatespeecher" who would be so insensitive as to use the word "bacon."

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

There are a few posts that I have been thinking about for a long time. I haven't written them, because they are too long and too involved and they don't do much other than restate what we all know, but at times like this, I just can't hold my tongue.

There is not a politician in office right now, who is not a traitor. There is no other way to put it. I know there are some good ones in there somewhere. Steve King of Iowa is one, a man who stands up for what he believes and walks out on the SOTU before he had to listen to any of the obvious garbage Barack Obama might spew. I know that in civilized politics, that is not an acceptable reaction, but he did it, probably because the concept of "civilized politics" in this day and age is ludicrous.

I met Steve King many years ago, back during the run up to the passage of Obamacare, when most Constitutionalists recognized that it was being subverted to pass such an abomination. King was the only representative in the House to take the time to talk to us and encourage our resistance to the law. Others glad-handed us and placated us and a few Democrats tried to have us thrown out of the building.

So, I am torn a little on Steve King, but the rest are traitors. Men of honor would not remain in office while the wholesale destruction of our nation has taken place. It is more than just the obvious violations of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th and 10th Amendments, it is the refusal to enforce federal law, the borders, and defend the nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. It is also the importation of refugees and placing them in states without consent of the governor of that state, an act which violates federal law. Texas and Alabama have filed lawsuits against the practice.

In simpler terms, Barack Obama has pursued policies dangerous to the people of the nation. He has cooperated with the enemy and now has turned a blind-eye to citizens of this nation, who have been killed and raped by these "refugees" they had no intention of vetting to determine whether they were, or were not a threat to the nation. Obama laughed off the idea of women being a threat only days before the husband and wife team, radicalized and dedicated to the terrorist attack in Bakersfield, launched their scheme.

But, the worst possible treason has been committed by the media. So intent on covering the tracks of their favorite, though wholly dysfunctional, president, they have allowed all sorts of oppression to occur under their watch. I get that they are socialists and Barack Obama has empowered their long-sought dreams. But, that is just politics as far as I am concerned. When it moves past politics to placing the American people in danger, there is a difference. When they help Obama import the same exact type of people who brought down the World Trade Center and pretend that they are all women and children from a distressed nation, it is worse than even media malpractice, it is treasonous.

So, whenever these points are made, racism is always claimed as the cause. Whatever. The media has lost the power for that accusation to mean anything. It is a card that has been overplayed. One might dismiss that accusation with a shrug, when once that would have been the worst defamation I could have received. Now, I just recognize the source and realize that they have no answer to their treason, but to deflect.

Here is the comparison that proves the media's treason. During the 1970's with a Republican president, Richard Nixon, Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal. Agents of the president broke into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate hotel to get political information. The media has kept that name alive by labeling every scandal a "gate," including something as trivial as Deflategate in the National Football League.

Nixon was eventually persuaded by Republicans to resign, because they refused to back him up. They refused to circle the wagons to protect one of their own, the way the Democrats circled the wagons to cover up Bill Clinton's allegations of rape. No matter how you turn the Monica Lewinsky business, it was still the most powerful man in the world seducing an intern. That, in the business world, would be classified by the National Organization for Women (NOW) as rape. Because, as they argue, there is no such thing as consensual sex when it occurs between a boss and an employee, much less an intern and certainly much less than the President of the United States. The media blew past that, but then, that was just rape, it wasn't Breaking and Entering. It wasn't political dirty tricks against their guy.

When it was revealed that the Obama Administration was responsible for walking illegally purchased guns to Mexican drug cartels claiming that they were tracking the purchases back to the true buyer, without putting in place a means of tracking the guns past the border, the media covered it up. Who knows how many lives were lost as a result of that policy? It was so bad that ATF agents contacted Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea, often considered "anti-government," to get the word out about the actions of the FBI. The story didn't really get any traction until Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent, was killed with one of the guns walked down to Mexico near Rio Rico, AZ.

We all know the names Woodward and Bernstein, but almost no one knows the names Vanderboegh and Codrea. Why is this? Why was no one ever convicted in the Fast and Furious scandal? The only ones punished were those agents who leaked the story to Vanderboegh and Codrea. Eventually, myself and many others contacted enough conservative radio talk show hosts and Vanderboegh and Codrea chronicled it so successfully that Sharyl Atkisson of CBS took it up and put the national story out there. Not only has she not been celebrated by her colleagues in the media, her computer was hacked by federal agents and she has been harassed and drummed out of her job at CBS.

It took much more courage for Vanderboegh and Codrea to break the Fast and Furious scandal than Woodward and Bernstein. What did W&B have to lose? Their jobs? Their reputations? Vanderboegh and Codrea had no cover whatsoever. They had no lawyers waiting in the wings to protect them. They didn't have the stature of a national journalist working for the Washington Post. They were just bloggers largely defamed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (a reckless terrorist organization itself) and labeled "anti-government."

But how can Vanderboegh and Codrea be "anti-government" when they expose the crimes of the federal government and W&B are hailed as heroes for exactly the same thing?

The media are full of traitors who do not have the integrity to stand up to power when they agree with the offender's politics. No sir. Rape, that's okay, if it's a Democrat. Importing murderers and arming murderous drug cartels, that's all good, if it's a Democrat. Breaking and Entering, well, wrong political party, chump. If Nixon were a Democrat, Watergate would have been a little bit of Chicago politics. No harm, no foul.

And, when moms and dads have to console their daughter who was brutally raped by sexual jihadists imported to this nation by government bureaucrats, that might just spell the end to this idea of waiting for elections to settle accounts. But, they started it.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

I rarely engage in asking readers of this blog to do things. I assume they have enough sense to do so on their own and I am not a leader. However, it has come to my attention that Mike Vanderboegh is accepting, not asking, but accepting appreciation from those who call themselves Three Percenters and Second Amendment activists. As you will see in the post I have linked here, David Codrea, has put in a request for those of us who have benefited from the formation of the Three Percenters send, in one way or another, "appreciation funds" to Mike as he in need.

I don't care what differences you might have had with Mike in the past. I do not accept or encourage the divisions in this community. I know that he has lent credibility to this patriot/liberty movement through his stalwart actions, like them or not. I will be happy to do as I have asked you to do.

The value of Ammon Bundy's stance in Oregon is illuminating the issue of federal ownership of land they have no right to own. But this, like so many other violations of the Constitution, requires the understanding of the Constitution in order to understand the issue. Unfortunately, most Americans have no understanding of the Constitution, its limitations on the federal government or the rights of the people it is required to defend.

They are locked into a simplistic understanding of the Constitution that creates the United States of America and little else. The fact that there is a United States of America, to them, means that the government is allowed to do whatever it wants. This is a view recently adopted by the Supreme Court. Rights are something that rich people are afforded, because they have the funds to hire lawyers that will argue for those rights. Public Defenders simply want to move the case through the system efficiently, which often means a plea of guilty for their clients. The facts, to them, are irrelevant. When one is paid by the state, they act in the interest of the state. This is exactly the position of the Supreme Court. They are paid by the federal government and they act in its interest.

There are so many cases that demonstrate that reality, I don't even want to go into it. Knowing it as a fact, is enough.

I applaud Ammon Bundy for his stance, if not his tactics. Often, since Bundy and associates occupied the federal building at the wildlife refuge, the Sagebrush Rebellion is mentioned in the news. Most people don't know what that is. The Sagebrush Rebellion began shortly after the newly created EPA, established in 1970 during the Nixon Administration, began to aggressively target farmers and ranchers of the West with longstanding rights to graze and farm on federal land.

Keep in mind, there is no Constitutional authority for the federal government to own land at all and many of these farmers and ranchers, especially ranchers, considered these rights to the range as absolute. Their contracts went back so many generations, they had no reason to suspect that it would ever come into question. They had spent thousands of dollars improving the land, putting in stock wells, fencing and protecting it from wild fires with the understanding that the original contract was safe and they could depend on this as the reason for their investment.

When the Bureau of Land Management wanted an enforcement arm to punish farmers and ranchers who did not properly kowtow to their whims, the EPA provided a means of punishment. The EPA could fine the farmers and ranchers for violations of regulations. The most common tactic was to have the Army Corps of Engineers label something a wetlands, often this could be anything from a pond to a lake on the property. Some of these "wetlands" were the result of heavy rain, but otherwise held no water at all. But that did not deter the EPA from its claim that the pond was being polluted by the cattle and the BLM had its means of punishing these ranchers.

When these cattle ranchers rebelled against these tactics it was called a Sagebrush Rebellion. Since many of the Western state legislatures were made up of people, whose families had deep roots in the farming and ranching industry, the states themselves rebelled and brought into question the constitutionality of federal ownership of land. Eventually, the states were bought off, or coerced to cease their official strategy, leaving only those smaller ranchers without political clout to fend off the abuses of the federal government.

But, the principles remain the same: the federal government uses the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to do the bidding of the BLM. The individual ranchers are left exposed to suffer the effects of institutional thuggery. This is what happened to Bundy and the Hammonds and thousands of farmers and ranchers across the West. Since almost every state west of Kansas endures the oppression of federal lands exceeding 40% of the total land mass, with Nevada being burdened by 90% of its land mass, these conflicts necessarily arise there and not in Kansas, which endures federal occupation of only 1.2% of its land mass.

I thank Ammon Bundy for illuminating this issue once again. I would like to think the states would take up the flag of the Sagebrush Rebellion and pursue the idea of turning these lands over to the states and ultimately the people. But, our system is much too corrupt to obey the Constitution. It has gained too much power by ignoring it, that I can not see anything short of true rebellion that would square it.

As far as I am concerned, that is the value of the Malheur occupation. Ammon Bundy has put the Sagebrush Rebellion back into the headlines and maybe it took his actions to bring that issue to the fore. To that extent he has already been successful. I am not about to give him advice he neither needs, nor wants, but I would like him to use the momentum he has created to further the objective, not to encourage a bloodbath that would obscure his important message.

I ask Barack Obama: If it would save just one life, wouldn't it be worth abandoning these federal lands to the states or the people themselves?

Article I, Section 8, clause 17 of the Constitution The Congress has power

17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

No where does it allow for random pieces of land to be held in reserve to the federal government on general purposes. It must have a specific national defense purpose or it is illegitimate.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

I have stayed away from the Oregon events specifically because I do not know the individuals involved. Ammon Bundy as well as all the Bundys were beyond reach at the standoff in Nevada (no, I was not there and my attempts to breach the communication barrier were not successful). This is likely the same thing. But, I would like to address the maelstrom of opinions surrounding this event.

Like most things concerning this patriot/liberty/militia community, there are conspiracies, betrayals and those types of accusations floating around. Stop it. Listen more than you speak. Think more than you write. This is Ammon Bundy's move, let him make it. Let's hope he has enough sense to make use of his stage for the cause of liberty. If not, we must decide what to do about it if it turns into another Waco. No more Wacos. Ever heard of that?

My opinion, from paying attention, is that Ammon Bundy should find a graceful way out of this. He has shown that there are those who will rally to the call. The Hammonds were his cause and this happens everywhere in the West, so I don't doubt the level of deceit and viciousness the Hammonds suffered at the hands of the feds, but they caved and turned themselves in. There is nothing left for Bundy to accomplish there. He has brought needed attention to the actions of the federal government and established himself as a leader, perhaps even a spokesman for the patriot cause. That's it. Without defending someone or something his actions have a lesser meaning.

That is only my opinion of the course of action Ammon Bundy should take. I pray for them all. But, should this go south, it is for us to understand and to react to it. It is in the federal government's hands as to how this will end. If there is one thing to keep in mind, all of this was started by the federal government and the bully tactics they have used with Western ranchers and farmers for the past several decades. This is the way they deal with a contract. If the rancher will not yield to their insatiable desire for "public" lands, they intimidate, fine and ultimately contrive charges to convict the rancher of some crime in order to obtain the land they want, no matter how long the rancher has used the land effectively.

The federal government does not get to tell us how to react to their next move. It is all part of the same thing. They have violated almost every one of the Bill of Rights and continue to do so. How they have the ability to sustain the 16th Amendment while violating all the others is beyond me, except that we have allowed it. They have spawned the patriot/liberty/militia movements by their actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco. They have given rise to the Tea Party by bankrupting citizens to cover the debts of banksters. They have spent this great nation into poverty (just wait). They fund the destruction of children and pay the salaries of those who sell the body parts. They have squandered the retirement funds in the Social Security Administration that many rely on for their livelihoods. What will they not do?